Steve Jobs on Managing People

Pl. take a look at this video (2.5mins) where Steve Jobs talk about how things are managed at Apple. I also reco watching the entire interview (1.5hrs) here.

Managing Emotions

Sitting close to Kevin Schultz means having an opportunity to talk to him regularly, apart from weekly 1-1s. Y’day he generally dropped by my cube to see how I was doing and somewhere discussion turned to range of emotions one display as a leader. He drew this scale 

Anger -> Disappointment -> No Response -> Agreement -> Joy

He says that there could be situations that a leader has to get angry and actually show it. However, it should be kept at minimum. He says “disappointment” must be used more frequently when things don’t go well. “No Response” is kind of an indifference – where an approach chosen or a decision made by a team member may not cause a big problem, but the person might not have “got it”, so you react by being indifferent.

I thought I’ll share this.

Do note that I’ve seen many people using “this person doesn’t “get it””. This is a dangerous position to be in. It is expected, atleast dealing with senior people, that you are in a position to assess what exactly the senior person wants even when the instructions may not be detailed. It can even be simple things like not using standard company template for ppt, put one gets labeled as not-getting-it. This is where self-awareness comes-in.

Changing the topic. The article titled “No, You Can’t Ignore Email. It’s Rude” by Adam Grant is going viral. The author argues that Being overwhelmed is no excuse. It’s hard to be good at your job if you’re bad at responding to people and says “Everyone occasionally misses an email. But if you’re habitually “too busy” to answer legitimate emails, there’s a problem with your process. It sends a signal that you’re disorganized — or that you just don’t care”.

Interviewing Senior Execs

http://delian.io/lessons-2

Summary 

• First identify whether the open role is value creating or value protecting. If it’s value creating, focus on ideas they’ve taken from start to finish even if they aren’t related to the role. If it’s value protecting, focus on whether they have lots of prior domain expertise related to the value you expect this role to protect. 
• Assess whether they think like an owner. Do they own mistakes? Are they kept up at night by what they would do differently if they were CEO? 
• Are they capable of strategic thinking? Can they keep your entire business equation in their head and even come up with new levers you hadn’t thought of that can move certain variables? 
• Do their strengths align with the major risks of the company? Do they diversify your leadership team’s style and background? 
• Are they a magnet for talent? Can they bring on people even better than themselves?

Found this great article on interviewing senior folks. One major culture shock I had when I joined NI was the questions that were asked for lateral folks. Irresspective of what the person has accomplished we used to go with a set of questions and judge the person based (mostly) on answers to those. The person might have been highly accomplished, but if he/she failed to answer “our” questions, the person was not selected. For someone grown up in interviewing not specifically for skills (don’t get me wrong, skills are important – you don’t want to teach ‘basics’ to senior folks), but also for knowledge/insights, attitude, work-ethic, demonstrated ability to learn etc., I was at a loss of words. Hope it has changed now. 

The summary itself gives us a set of great processes and things to look for. Though it is directed towards startups hiring CXOs, it is applicable for us too when we hire Senior Enggs+ and GM+, though the scope of “strategic thinking” may be different for a GM when compared to a CFO.

What RamP's Reading: Feb'19

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Discover Your True North: Being a leader is about much more than title and management skills—it's fundamentally a question of who we are as human beings. Discover Your True North offers a concrete and comprehensive program for becoming an authentic leader, and shows how to chart your path to leadership success.

Take Your Time: The Wisdom Of Slowing Down: When the mind is unhurried, we are patient, kind, and focused, ready to respond to what really matters amidst the clamor of a busy day. The secret is to train our minds to work steadily and with one-pointed attention, however many tasks confront us.

For over forty years, Easwaran taught meditation and he distills the wisdom of slowing down in this book.

Why bad leaders focus on being friends first

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-bad-leaders-focus-being-friends-first-john-eades/

Interesting article.

I’ve always disliked leaders that sugar coat feedback and/or exaggerate accomplishments of the team members when there is none or at best mediocre. This might be fine in the short run (people will “like” such leaders better than someone that is seen demanding/challenging), but in the long run everyone finds out resulting in a trust deficit. Of course it doesn’t mean one should not focus on friendship or friendly leader aren’t effective. Colin Powell said “Being responsible means sometimes pissing off people” in his celebrated principles of leadership. 

I also have made a my fair share of mistakes of being “too much people focussed” and therefore not able to make good business decisions which would be long term (and win-win).

Ofcourse no one likes constructive feedback (though we publicly proclaim that we actually receive less feedback and welcome more), but in the long run we need our leaders to challenge us and help us grow. And for that to happen we have to be open for constructive feedback. Focussing on being “liked” is a big impediment. When we expect this from our leaders, why not provide the same for people that have given us an opportunity to lead them.